The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1887-08-24
PHIL ARMoUK,s KINDERGARTEN.
Eleven Hundred Children In Attendance
and He Wants Five Thousand.


and He Wants Five Thousand.
Chicago Herald.
Phil Armour, Notwithstanding the weather
was not of the sort tor his rheumatism was
every Sunday. During the week it is run from
his LaSalle- street Office. just his packing
houses are. There are now about /. 100 children
at the mission on Sundays. There are 1000
men at the different packing houses. Armour
will be satisfied when there as many little
folks up at the Thirty third street establish
.shouses" week days. There are about as
many departments at the establishment as
at the other. At the mission there is a kinder
garten, the most perfect in some respects in
the world. It Is an Imp ortant part of FroebePs
system that there shall be for the children,
on the floor in the class room, good sized circle,
cut in various WAYS into segmeuts, upon which
they can form and march. The circle on the
floor in the kindergarten room up at Armour's is
the largest anywhere It's only deep black
line of paint, making a circumference with fif-
ty-foot diameter, but it cost high The plans
of the mission were drawn SO that when 1t came
to making that big circle the floor of the kin
dergarten pillar stood right in the way The
teacher was in despair kindergarten without
a perfect circle on the floor would be failure.
When the trouble was explained to Phil Armour
he declared at once that he was with the teacher.
If he could not have kindergarten of the right
sort he did not want any building So
the pillars had to come out and the foundations
had to be changed and the building
little altered. 1t took two months additional
time and probably $40. 900 extra expenses, but
that kinder garten at the mission has got the
finest and biggest circle in creation. There
ninety little ones in the class. and each one of
the ninety has history of his or her Most
OF them were picked out from the most distress
ing sort of surroundings, fixed up by the sewing
society. which is another department of the
mission, and entered in the kindergarten. Chill
dren whose parents can possibly afford to send
them to a pay school can't get into Phil
Armours. This is about the only sine qua non
about the Thirty third street establishment
People who can afford to pay doctor are
turned away from the dispensary; people who
can possibly buy their own medicines don't get
their prescriptions filled free. Children whose
parents have got anything at all are not
taken at the kindergarten It's just the
other way at the Armour packing
house, where nobody gets anything
unless they have got the money in their clothes.
this mission. All of that went into the mission
building proper. Phil Armour has given $780,
600 more to keep the work going. This has been
put into apartment buildings Forty-fve flats
have been finished and thirty five of them
rented. Forty five more are in process of build
ing. The buildings were put in a modest neigh
borhood, directed by j. o. Armour's will, but
the flats and mission are SO handsome that they
have greatly improved the quality of the
rounding property. This was the case too, at
Philadelphia with the Wanamaksr mission,
but which finally altogether changed and i'm
proved its neighborhood for a considerable
distance round. When all the flats
are finished they will give the mission an in
come of $35, 900 to S45. 900 year. Those
pied now earn $l6 O00 They are run like
machine. The fats finer than can be gotten
anywhere else in the city for the money. The
grounds around are kept finer Even the Sun
day school is business principles. When
of the teachers suggested that it would be
good thing to give every scholar Bible who
would bring another little along with them,
Armour Immediately sent out his purchasing
agent, and got a thousand of the finest revised
editions to be had. Then it occurred to him
that that wouldn't be quite business, and that
perhaps other Sunday schools would lose their
scholars and feel sore. Every body will get
Bible without any condition attached to It.
Armour expects to leave the mission SO we'll pro-
vided for that il will be going a hundred years
from now, when the packing houses all
gone. Then the only thing the people will be
able to recall about Armour will be that he
founded and generously endowed during his life
fha Arm